Advertisements

Jan 10, 2014

Friday, January 10, 2014, John Verel and Jeff Chen

What a fabulous Friday from Jeff Chen and John Verel, who we first saw as a team back in April for John's debut. First, for those who do not know the term Pangram, it means containing all 26 letters. In addition to the theme, the puzzle itself is a pangram. The use of the old typing sentence is presented with a beautiful visual of the fox jumping as shown in the circled letters from bottom left to bottom right making an arc of the QUICK BROWN FOX with JUMPED OVER and LAZY DOG under the arc of the fox. Some of you may not like this form of puzzle, but it is awesome to me. In order to pull this off and still create a doable puzzle, the fill is pretty easy. For CED, MANAC and you truly visual people I offer:

20A. Only woman to win the top prize on "The $64,000 Question" : JOYCE BROTHERS. (13)Her category was boxing.

21. Chanel No. 1? : COCO. The designer, who died on January 10, 1971. Her STORY.

23. "The Lion King" queen : NALA. The name is used in ancient Hindu lore; she is the deuteragonist in the story (now there is a CW word!). Also the initials of the National Association of Legal Assistants.

60. Year abroad : ANO. Without the tilde it is Portuguese, with =Spanish for year.

61. Storage unit : MEG.abyte.

This was a very enjoyable outing for me, especially when I saw the "BRO" to make the theme. Jeff is amazing, with his mentoring, his work on the XWord website, writing puzzles and books. Kudos. Until next time, stay warm: Lemonade, Thanks Jeff and John.

82 comments:

A sestet or a limerick? I'll let you decide for yourself which is better.

Jack jumps over the candle stick wick,The cow jumps over the moon, for her schtick.Buddha jumps over the wall,A PANGRAM wants it all.BROWN FOX JUMPS OVER THE LAZY DOG QUICK,For Humpty, jumps led to a fall!

THE QUICK BROWN FOX is an agile sort,She JUMPS OVER things just for the sport.THE LAZY DOG,He sleeps like a log.The PANGRAM they form is quite short.

I don't know if I could have finished without red letters, but they certainly made for a shorter time and a more pleasurable solving experience.Link 0:24

Sorry but the cluing was too hard for me. I wanted IDIOTS for HUMANS for example. And I couldn't parse ATOZ, CSA, HRS or UNL so I wasn't even sure if the perps were right. I did finally get the theme though.

OK, this was just plain annoying. I did manage to finish unassisted, but only after needing massive help from the perps to guess at the theme answers. Once I finally got JUMPS OVER, PANGRAM and LAZY DOG, I wasted precious time looking for something, anything that had to do with a quick brown fox, but to no avail.

If you haven't guessed by now, my puzzle had no circles in it. Usually that doesn't matter so much, but today it really killed the puzzle.

Also, what was up with some of the cluing? I can kinda, sorta see what "Word choice" has to do with EDIT, but it still doesn't really make much sense to me. Unless we're talking about Microsoft Word here? Yeah, we probably are. D'OH!

On the bright side, I really enjoyed the clue for OSLO. I needed a perp or two to figure out which city, but I realized the trick right away.

Good morning, gang - wow, great puzzle by John and Jeff! As Lemonade pointed out, the answers were somewhat easy for a Friday due to the execution of the theme, but to me it was well worth it. My major hesitation was with 'O. Henry quality?', where I almost wrote in IRONY before catching the question mark.

Lemon, regarding Taps, I always thought it was the three drum taps that gave it its name. And for some reason, the only verse I knew is the middle one.

After sleeping on it, I decided to wait three weeks and then get another urinalysis, rather than proceeding with the other tests. Enough people have told me that 'traces' can come and go, and I thank everyone who provided input, both on here and via email. This is just a great group of people.

Going to see Lone Survivor tonight, a movie everyone should see to witness first-hand how incredibly brave our Navy SEALS are.

This was turning out to be a very frustrating DNF. I had all but three squares filled and then stared at the puzzle for about ten minutes. OSLO didn't make sense since it's "obviously" not a city in Czechoslovakia (except, of course, that it is). Great clue! And, as always, I get stumped with multiple-short-word answers so ATOZ, a crossword staple, eluded me (I kept trying to pronounce it).

That left one square. Which, not surprisingly, was another multi-word answer: LONGO (I know next to nothing about The Lion King).

Funny how solving a a puzzle can change it from "unfair" to "challenging".

[19:36]

P.S. As the former friend ("owner" hardly seems the right word) of a great Dalmatian, Cruella is the first name on my list of villains too.

Got 'er done about 0300. Had to wait for reveille to post. Solved on-line and noticed the circles. Wiggled my way down and thru and paused at the THE clue. I think the theme began to form here. LAZY DOG gave it away. We did that sentence for warmups in typing because it held all the letters. After PANGRAM filled, I took a look at the circle fills and beheld; a QUICK BROWN FOX in a perfect symmetric parabola JUMPing OVER THE LAZY DOG.Loved OSLO, and PRE REQ. Sussed Izu in the right part of the world 'til the perps spit out TOKYO.Probably on the easy side today but a hell of a ride.Thanks John and JEFF.Thanks Lemon for the visual on CHEEKS. That's what I was thinking.

Wow, I thought I was going to get snowed in in the great northwest. I started with "pro-" RATA and had no idea what kind of pass Magic Johnson would make. The rest of it came together quickly, though I expected JOYCE BROTHERS to be part of the theme. Well, she was, but only the BRO.

I also shot myself in the foot with NO DICE instead of NO SALE, but that quickly became apparent.

George's EXS all live in Texas, which is why he resides in Tennessee. My ex lives in Tennessee, and I reside in Texas.

When I was learning to type, the sentence was "The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog's back."

I liked this theme and the circles. I caught onto the theme quickly. Except for the NW corner this was easy for me. There were plenty of fun misdirections.

However, DNF. I think EDIT for "word choice" is off, way off. I didn't realize that the Izu Islands were part of Tokyo Prefecture. They are so far removed from Tokyo proper. I can never remember the Simpson characters. I am embarrassed to say that LONG O got me again. I wanted IRONY, but knew it wouldn't fit."Mouthing off" is yesterdays' SNIPpy.Great puzzle. except for EDIT.

John Verel here. Just thought I'd share a bit of the back story of this puzzle.

So, pangrams frequently provoke, um, vigorous reactions in some parts of the blog-o-sphere. The pangrams I've seen have the pangram aspect as a secondary attribute of the puzzle. The idea with this puzzle was to do an explicit pangram in the theme and have a bit of fun with it.

We played around with a few things that didn't work, where PANGRAM was the revealer: wok, fry pan, bad reviews, that sort of thing. The AHA moment was a draft where the clue for PANGRAM was, "THE QUICK BROWN FOX JUMPS OVER THE LAZY DOG, for example." At that, my co-constructor said, hold on a sec, and the jumping fox came to life. Just like Jeff to do that, you know? This is when constructing is fun.

As it was in our COLD PLAY offering last April, it is was a pleasure to collaborate with Jeff. You come away smarter when you hang around with that dude, is what I'm sayin'.

This was a tough one. Long O, A frame, Do a job on, and edit just had me at a dead end. I never saw the quick brown fox. I couldn't figure out why there was not 'Part 2'. Had to walk away and come back 10 minutes later. That usually works.

"And Dimples, who now lives in Temple 'sgot the law looking for me." Ah, Sing it George ! Love that Texas fiddle and steel guitar.

I got it but I didn't get it. 42 minutes on the nose. No circles for me, so had no clue what was going on until I filled PANGRAM. Then knew there would be at least one occurrence of every letter. Got PANGRAM with just UGLY, HEROD and ANO. Never would have seen the actual pangram. Thanks for the explanation Lemonade.

Stumbling blocks were:

Macho Guys not studs but HEMEN.O.Henry quality not irony but LONG OMagic Johnson pass - Had bounce, but the K in CHEEKS gave me NO LOOK.Improvise wasn't 'make do'

Thank you John Verel and Jeff Chen, and thank you Lemonade ! All in all,

Anon at 7:37, on my work place where I write the blog the theme answers line up in the arc pattern as in the actual puzzle. I cannot get that to translate to the view here. I was attempting to get the same visual fun.

Well, this gave me a run for my money! I finished w/o help but struggled in spots. A lot of misdirection in the cluing, but, eventually, it all fell into place.

I originally filled in "Trips over" perhaps a subliminal association of my recent swan dive, caused not by tripping over the dog but being in a hurry to pet her. My brain must have been on cruise control because I never made the connection between the pangram and the typing exercise until Lemon's cogent expo.

Thanks to Jeff and John for a challenging Friday workout and thanks to John for stopping by and sharing some inside info on the puzzle.

From yesterday, thanks to YR and Anonymous T for your concern. No, YR, I am not on crutches and I'm not in pain, per se. The knee is sore and stiff and there is quite a bit of swelling. I just have to be very careful and make sure the steri-strips are firmly attached. Hope your MRI rules out surgery. (-:

Just back from clearing off a space in my Puzzle Hall of Fame. As I worked through Jeff and John’s masterpiece, the elegance became even more apparent. Wow! The NE was overrun with AHA’s!

Musings-Many a Magic Johnson teammate caught one in the face on a NO LOOK pass-I’ve seen bad teachers ERR by trying to WING IT and the results ain’t pretty -OSLO cluing was FAB, Mari-Ever do any PRO BONO work you regretted, Lemon. My dentist did!-Z TO A – Kaboodle and kit whole the?-TAPS can still send chills up my spine but they’re running out of vets to play it at funerals-Homer and ABE ain’t exactly the noble ones we expect-This RUE just opened in town. I’m not curious enough to find out the derivation of their name-If you hated this puzzle, you might say ABALONE-Those CHEEKS are far superior to those I’ve ever seen on plumbers-My dreaming is woolgathering in the day and stargazing (SETI job?) at night-Bonds, Sosa, et al that got all the HR’S during the “Steroid Era” ain’t gettin’ into Cooperstown-Ubiquity of cell phones have led to a lotta UNL’s not to be confused with Cornhuskers who are UNL’s

HG, I think you won't regret knowing the RUE linked by you is likely just a reference to the French word for Street, trying to add some designer class to their wares, but who knows. Maybe we can ask Kanga?

Here’s the bet my linguistic amigos: If you don’t laugh at Demetri Martin’s (modern day Stephen Wright?) take on silent letters (2:20 – bit starts at 1:33), I’ll come to your city and caddy for you! It’s worth waiting through the 15 second commercial that accompanies it.

Yowza! This is the kind of puzzle that I yearn for and love. Thank you, Jeff and John!

It was a slow, slow start especially when I saw 20A, who the heck would know who won the $64,000 question? But with patience, perseverance and pencil pushing I got it all. Supreme satisfaction at the end!

I loved the cluing for

AORTA, blood line, though I think I've seen it before. HEM, sewer almost got me and I laughed when the bulb went on

I learned about nacre from doing puzzles. And lately my youngest granddaughter loves 101 Dalmations so CRUELLA came easily.

I was pretty sure I was going to enjoy the puzzle right from the start and I did. I was pleased with myself for getting OSLO and DO A JOB ON. I got part of the idea of the theme OK but missed out because there were no circles on the Mensa site. Bummer! With the circles, it reminded me of a puzzle with a theme about St. Louis's Gateway Arch where the circles were in the shape of an arch running from bottom to top and back. Anyway, I admired this clever and enjoyable puzzle.

I did not tiptoethru this one! I'm so glad I can come to this site and get explanations and insights, plus more crossword knowledge from the constructors. I hold off as long as possible coming to this blog and then log in and laugh at myself for some of the weird fill-ins I've come up with. Ninjas are not GI Joes! TGIF and Thank you, All!

Hi Y'all! The puzzle was delightful, John & Jeff! Lemonade's expo was also great. The FOX video is amazing. Love "Taste of Honey" which was one of the few albums I ever bought. Herb Alpert got "lippy" in the best way.

BROTHERS came early but I couldn't remember her first name and never watched $64,000 Question, so I didn't think it could possibly be the good doctor.

NE was the last to fill. I resisted an OSLO in Czech until the very end and was shocked to not get red letters. I thought Cheerios would be "ovoid". I tried lbs, cts, ton, etc for "wt units" then left it blank until last. I did finally get "tada".

HRS? Home runs? Oh, I thought it took "hours" to finish the game. AFRAME not "skiers".

Musings 2 Post 3 (It was a close game)-Another Typewriter exercise that would make Victor Borge proud!-Anon, if that is the first picture on this blog you have found that won’t pass the “if that was your granddaughter” test, we have been reading different blogs for lo these past years. I sympathize with your feelings but we all come to this site as adults with our own sense of what is offensive and hope that picture is not enough to drive you away from our little linguistic lemonade stand.

Well, if this has been a Saturday, I'd be happier about my DNF because Lemonade's description, followed by John's additional information, certainly does make it clear that this is a brilliant puzzle. But it just didn't work for me, for some reason, even with the circles. Sigh. Not the best Friday morning--but at least it's a sunny day and all is well at home at the moment.

Anon at 10:37 and anon at 7:14 concerning the young lady displaying her backside....I would dispute that there was anything pornographic about the picture and while nudity does not appeal to all, as HG has said, this blog has posted pictures before. What is being displayed there is no more than what a thong bathing suit shows.

As for it being my granddaughter one day, I would hope if she were to choose to have her posterior picture taken and have it in the public arena, I would love and support her. In general I think we worry to much about nudity and not enough about violence. Like many great works of art reflect, the nude female form is a thing of beauty and can be appreciated in a non-prurient manner. And the girl has great legs.

When I started this puzzle, I only had herb & amor (5&6D). WAGed Charo & redo, & somehow pulled Joyce Brothers out of just "bro" without knowing she won. The rest of the puzzle filled in from there slowly like bacteria in a petri dish. Great clueing!

Same puzzle solving as Al Cyone today - had everything right except the L in NALA and the OZ in OZs. What I did NOT have were the circles, and as mentioned above, I went searching in vain for the Part 2 clue. Knew there was a quick brown fox hiding in there somewhere, just did not find him, so thanks again Lemon for the illuminating expo...!

Fell head first into the IRONY trap, also tried ONE and ODD before LOP (SIDED) came into focus....

Also had ASSIST and NO PEEK before NO LOOK....

Could the CHEEKy picture be characterized as full backal nudity...? Just asking....

I think we had all of the Tijuana Brass LPs growing up as kids. The cover for Whipped Cream and Other Delights was a tad racy, but certainly appreciated by the guys in the house.... I'd link the album art but the need to learn how to do so on the work iPad....

Liked this one a lot. Finally, a PANGRAM that not only isn't just a gratuitous, forced add-on, but is the heart of the puzzle!

Wasn't sure what UNL at 42D meant, so stopped by to see what the answer was and did a triple-take when I saw the old guy with the white goatee in the charming video Lemonade attached at the top of the write up.

Is that the '73 Nobel Prize winning ethologist, Konrad Lorenz? I know he was especially fond of, along with birds, dogs, and one of his earliest books was Man Meets Dog. I couldn't confirm whether it was him or not over at youtube. Sure looks like him though.

He was a major influence on me when I was a psych grad student, so to see him or his dopplegänger on an xword site was quite a surprise.

Anoa Bob, good to see you. I have no idea if that was Lorenz, but he was an influence when I was in psychology graduate school. The menagerie in the backyard suggests you may be correct. Working on anything fun?

I am learning so much reading these daily commentaries. I finished most of the puzzle, with just a little help from my crossword dictionary.

Dennis, I'm going to see "Lone Survivor" tonight also! The book was intense. I've seen two interviews with Marcus Luttrell about the movie, and I'm prepared to see they have taken some theatrical liberties. Marcus Luttrell is a very interesting and humble man.

A beaut! My thanks to Mssrs. Verel and Chen.I thought I would have to bail, but at the end of two long tries, success!

For me, ANAGRAM was the main holdup, and HEROES to a lesser extent, just as for Jazzbumpa. My breakthrough came when I grokked onto LAZY DOG and realized it was the familiar sentence used in typing lessons.

How many here are familiar with Mark Dunn's brilliant novel, ELLA MINNOW PEA? It is really a fine story, told with the gradual elimination of letters from that pangram. A tour de force.

What else to say? OSLO and LONG O misdirected beautifully. But don't we love the tough ones, especially when we get them?! We feel like chess masters giving respect to a defeated opponent, or winning generals complimenting our enemy's tactics.

I agree with the gripes about "word choice" = "EDIT"; I feel Barry G's (and others') pain in not seeing any circles, and I question the wordness of "pangram" (it's not in very many dictionaries – and, by the way, there's a squiggly red line under it where I just typed it).

My main gripe, however, is with George Strait's "EXS." The plural of "ex" is "exes." The constructors of the puzzle have an excuse, of course, since the Shafers, who wrote the song, misspelled it "ex's."

But withal I found this to be a clever puzzle. Especially for "OSLO" in Czechoslovakia. There is no such country as Czechoslovakia any more, of course; but there is still an "OSLO" in "CZECHOSLOVAKIA."

You would think those smart people at the Mensa site could figure out how to put a few measly circles on the puzzle. Not to mention getting all the clues printed on the Sunday puzzle. We might have to demote them to Densans.

Hola Everyone, What a great puzzle. I got the theme and that helped me to fill in a whole section in the middle bottom. I did need help for first woman to win the $64 Question prize.

Oslo was a real puzzling answer to the clue for City in Czechoslovakia. Fun misdirection.

I was stuck for the longest time on Sewer's bottom. My mind is on Sewers, I guess, since we had to call the Roto-Rooter's out this week to unclog our main line to the street. I really had a V-8 moment when Hems revealed itself. LOL.

Amil instead of Amyl held up phony for a long time, too.

Thanks Lemon for clarifying several of the ? I had along the way today.

Finally getting all of the Christmas decorations down and put away. So slow this year in getting them up and then in getting them down, again!

I was banning myself from the site today for troll-feeding last night, but futher-penance: I'm an idiot HUMAN (Martin). I've read PANGRAM as PANaGRAM forever. I've even used it in public! Oh, I'm not BASKing in the ERR - just something dyslexics deal with (deprecate was depreciate in my head until a friend corrrected me).

JV & JC - this was very well executed! I worked my CHEEKS off on this. I got part of the theme - IQS & CRUELLA and FEDS, and EXS clued me in. But, I just couln't parse it in the time I gave myself - and damnit it's a PANaGRAM!

LEM - thanks for the write-up. It cleared up HRS (and I call myself a baseball fan?) and other huh?'s

CED - Loved the fox & hound links!

OK, back to my self-imposed exile....

I will not feed the trolls.I will not feed the trolls.I will not feed the trolls.I will not f....

Lemonade, I understand your argument @5:20, but I think it misses the point. I still don't like EDIT. The author chooses the great majority of the words. An editor's job is so much more than choosing the final words.Maybe a crossword constructor who has had many of his clues changed, feels the editor chooses the words.

However,thank you for your dog and fox clip.Great! Rather than LAZY, I think that DOG was surely more patient than any dog I have seen.

WQXR. public radio,uses the Typewriter Symphony as the intro to its Office Hour segment. I enjoy it very much even though it is passe. You don't hear that clickety-clack in offices or newsrooms any longer.

I did a Google map search and there is an OSLO, Czech. I didn't believe there was.

Loved James Bond Squirrel clip. I used to love watching squirrels play along my neighbor's tree limbs, leaping and running. Then he cut back the trees to make less shade so he could grow grass beneath. Not as many frolicking runways for the red rodents. Shucks!

I got my hands on this puzzle about 40 minutes ago. Thirty to solve it and ten to read previous comments, and here I am. Even though I technically solved it, it was much too clever for me. I told the Irish when I finished "I know 'Oslo' can't be right but it's what I've got. And even though we've had A to Z many times, I kept thinking 'What the hell is atoz?'Once I had lazy dog, jumps over came quickly, but I kept thinking, Where's the quick brown fox? Didn't see that until I read 714's writeup. And I had the circles, so no excuse. A very clever puzzle and fun to pick at. Oh, and Lemonade, damned good answer on the cheeks. We'd all be better off with more sex and less violence. I'll take the collective word of the group on the movie Lone Survivor and the character of Marcus Luttrell, but I'm about 2/3 finished with the book (got it for Christmas) and IMO he was very poorly served by his ghost writer. There's no doubting his bravery and that of SEALS in general, but I hope the movie does more justice to his and their story than the book. My reading suggests that the families of the non-survivors were not very happy with it when it first appeared. Also, from what I read the director is considered to be one of the best with this genre. I hope it tells the story well. It's a powerful one in spite of the book's shortcomings.

With all this discussion of typewriters, I went off on a mission to find Janis's version of Summertime from the "Typewriter tapes". Spent a half an hour, but couldn't find it. But I did find a great version of "Little Girl Blue" from the Tom Jones Show that's worth sharing.....So here you go.

I know this has been mentioned before but I just noticed all of the really neat stuff I learn about and enjoy in the links from the write ups and all of the posts. This blog is entertaining and educational. Maybe we should get college credit for our participation.

There is nothing worse than a doctor's receptionist who insists youtell her what is wrong with you in a room full of other patients.

I know most of us have experienced this, and I love the way this guy handled it.

The receptionist asked what his problem was.

'There's something wrong with my penis', he replied.

The receptionist became irritated and said, 'You shouldn't come into a crowded waiting room and say things like that.

''Why not, you asked me what was wrong and I told you,' he said.

The receptionist replied; 'Now you've caused some embarrassment in this room full of people. You should have said there is something wrong with your ear or something and discussed the problem further with the doctor in private.'

The man replied, 'You shouldn't ask people questions in a roomful of strangers if the answer could embarrass anyone.

The man walked out, waited several minutes, and then re-entered.

The receptionist smiled smugly and asked, 'Yes?'

There's something wrong with my ear,' he stated.

The receptionist nodded approvingly and smiled, knowing he had taken her advice.'And what is wrong with your ear, sir?'

'I can't pee out of it,' he replied.The waiting room erupted in laughter.

Remember our discussion of REATA/RIATA yesterday? Well, today I solved a puzzle that had the second spelling so I did some research. Both are considered correct! It would depend on the constructor's usage, of course.

Ya know, just to follow up on Anon T and his self imposed exile from the Corner, I wonder if instead of having the daily blogger police the site for the personal attacks and general snarkiness, is it possible for Blogger to identify and automatically filter out any and all comments from a specified IP address...?

Speaking of personal attacks, whatever happened to the laws against libel and slander? Do they not apply to the net?

If my choice of phrases is improper I apologize but I think it is appropriate to defend a clue if it makes sense. YR and her response were the type of discussion I had in mind. In the future I will be more careful with how I try to get discussion going. Perhaps my comment was skewed by how many words are charged by puzzle editors but the few book projects I have been around also involved word changes. Peace out, never intend to insult

Took a long time (many unknown names)and the theme was slow in coming. In the right/ top got OSLO only because it looked like one of those "read between the line" clues, but that led to SPACEOUT and LAZYEYED (which seemed a bit mean) with then ONZ (American measures always trip me up) which crossed with SPAN and JAZZ... Slowly realised everything other than OSLO was wrong. OATEN was iffy at best but I eventually got it done. I generally DNF Fridays but I've only been doing these for about half a year ON PAPER so I'm proud of myself on this one. Especially dealing with obscure American references (universities, lawmakers, governmental acronyms and the misspelling of words like colour, honour and colledge)